UAB IT has an automated crisis response process to respond quickly when an outage occurs with a key technology service, such as email or cloud storage. 

Anyone on campus can sign up for emails from the UAB Status Page, which gives them immediate notification when a system is down. 

Now, a new bot for the crisis response process channel in Microsoft Teams can answer frequently asked questions and give more information for tasks related to the crisis response process, which gives those involved in the response to an outage more freedom to work the crisis rather than answer questions. 

Channel members can chat with the bot and receive instant answers. Before this, users were directed to a document library where the process document was located. If they could not find answers there, the next step would be to leave a message in the team's channel and hope for someone to respond in a timely manner.  

“I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself in the middle of an IT crisis at UAB.  I’ve been involved in several over my years here,” said David Beeching, a systems analyst who has been heavily involved in creation of the crisis response process. “Anything I can do to help our staff complete the Crisis Response Process (CRP) stress-free, is a win.”